Installing AUCTeX
*****************

The modern and strongly recommended way of installing AUCTeX is by using
the Emacs package manager integrated in Emacs 24 and greater (ELPA).
Simply do 'M-x list-packages RET', mark the auctex package for
installation with 'i', and hit 'x' to execute the installation
procedure.  That's all.  This installation procedure has several
advantages.  Besides being platform and OS independent, you will receive
intermediate releases between major AUCTeX releases conveniently.  For
past ELPA releases, see <https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/auctex.html>.

   The remainder of this section is about installing AUCTeX from a
release tarball or from a checkout of the AUCTeX repository.

   Installing AUCTeX should be simple: merely './configure', 'make', and
'make install' for a standard site-wide installation (most other
installations can be done by specifying a '--prefix=...' option).

   On many systems, this will already activate the package, making its
modes the default instead of the built-in modes of Emacs.  If this is
not the case, consult *note Loading the package::.  Please read through
this document fully before installing anything.  The installation
procedure has changed as compared to earlier versions.  Users of
MS Windows are asked to consult the file 'INSTALL.windows'.

1 Prerequisites
***************

   * A recent version of Emacs, alternatively XEmacs

     Emacs 20 is no longer supported, and neither is XEmacs with a
     version of 'xemacs-base' older than 1.84 (released in sumo from
     02/02/2004).  Using preview-latex requires a version of Emacs
     compiled with image support.  While the X11 version of Emacs 21
     will likely work, Emacs 22 and later is preferred.

     Windows
          Precompiled versions are available from
          <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/>.
     Mac OS X
          For an overview of precompiled versions of Emacs for Mac OS X
          see for example
          <http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/EmacsForMacOS>.
     GNU/Linux
          Most GNU/Linux distributions nowadays provide a recent variant
          of Emacs via their package repositories.
     Self-compiled
          Compiling Emacs yourself requires a C compiler and a number of
          tools and development libraries.  Details are beyond the scope
          of this manual.  Instructions for checking out the source code
          can be found at <https://savannah.gnu.org/bzr/?group=emacs>.

     If you really need to use Emacs 21 on platforms where this implies
     missing image support, you should disable the installation of
     preview-latex (see below).

     While XEmacs (version 21.4.15, 21.4.17 or later) is supported,
     doing this in a satisfactory manner has proven to be difficult.
     This is mostly due to technical shortcomings and differing API's
     which are hard to come by.  If AUCTeX is your main application for
     XEmacs, you are likely to get better results and support by
     switching to Emacs.  Of course, you can improve support for your
     favorite editor by giving feedback in case you encounter bugs.

   * A working TeX installation

     Well, AUCTeX would be pointless without that.  Processing
     documentation requires TeX, LaTeX and Texinfo during installation.
     preview-latex requires Dvips for its operation in DVI mode.  The
     default configuration of AUCTeX is tailored for teTeX or
     TeXlive-based distributions, but can be adapted easily.

   * A recent Ghostscript

     This is needed for operation of preview-latex in both DVI and PDF
     mode.  Most versions of Ghostscript nowadays in use should work
     fine (version 7.0 and newer).

   * The 'texinfo' package

     Strictly speaking, you can get away without it if you are building
     from the distribution tarball, have not modified any files and
     don't need a printed version of the manual: the pregenerated info
     file is included in the tarball.  At least version 4.0 is required.

   For some known issues with various software, see the 'PROBLEMS' file.

2 Configure
***********

The first step is to configure the source code, telling it where various
files will be.  To do so, run

     ./configure OPTIONS

   (Note: if you have fetched AUCTeX from Git rather than a regular
release, you will have to first follow the instructions in
'README.GIT').

   On many machines, you will not need to specify any options, but if
'configure' cannot determine something on its own, you'll need to help
it out with one of these options:

'--prefix=/usr/local'
     All automatic placements for package components will be chosen from
     sensible existing hierarchies below this: directories like 'man',
     'share' and 'bin' are supposed to be directly below PREFIX.

     Only if no workable placement can be found there, in some cases an
     alternative search will be made in a prefix deduced from a suitable
     binary.

     '/usr/local' is the default PREFIX, intended to be suitable for a
     site-wide installation.  If you are packaging this as an operating
     system component for distribution, the setting '/usr' will probably
     be the right choice.  If you are planning to install the package as
     a single non-priviledged user, you will typically set PREFIX to
     your home directory.

'--with-emacs[=/PATH/TO/EMACS]'
     If you are using a pretest which isn't in your '$PATH', or
     'configure' is not finding the right Emacs executable, you can
     specify it with this option.

'--with-xemacs[=/PATH/TO/XEMACS]'
     Configure for generation under XEmacs (Emacs is the default).
     Again, the name of the right XEmacs executable can be specified,
     complete with path if necessary.

'--with-packagedir=/DIR'
     This XEmacs-only option configures the directory for XEmacs
     packages.  A typical user-local setting would be
     '~/.xemacs/xemacs-packages'.  If this directory exists and is below
     PREFIX, it should be detected automatically.  This will install and
     activate the package.

'--without-packagedir'
     This XEmacs-only option switches the detection of a package
     directory and corresponding installation off.  Consequently, the
     Emacs installation scheme will be used.  This might be appropriate
     if you are using a different package system/installer than the
     XEmacs one and want to avoid conflicts.

     The Emacs installation scheme has the following options:

'--with-lispdir=/DIR'
     This Emacs-only option specifies the location of the 'site-lisp'
     directory within 'load-path' under which the files will get
     installed (the bulk will get installed in a subdirectory).
     './configure' should figure this out by itself.

'--with-auctexstartfile=auctex.el'
'--with-previewstartfile=preview-latex.el'
     This is the name of the respective startup files.  If LISPDIR
     contains a subdirectory 'site-start.d', the start files are placed
     there, and 'site-start.el' should load them automatically.  Please
     be aware that you must not move the start files after installation
     since other files are found _relative_ to them.

'--with-packagelispdir=auctex'
     This is the directory where the bulk of the package gets located.
     The startfile adds this into LOAD-PATH.

'--with-auto-dir=/DIR'
     You can use this option to specify the directory containing
     automatically generated information.  It is not necessary for most
     TeX installs, but may be used if you don't like the directory that
     configure is suggesting.

'--help'
     This is not an option specific to AUCTeX.  A number of standard
     options to 'configure' exist, and we do not have the room to
     describe them here; a short description of each is available, using
     '--help'.  If you use '--help=recursive', then also
     preview-latex-specific options will get listed.

'--disable-preview'
     This disables configuration and installation of preview-latex.
     This option is not actually recommended.  If your Emacs does not
     support images, you should really upgrade to a newer version.
     Distributors should, if possible, refrain from distributing AUCTeX
     and preview-latex separately in order to avoid confusion and
     upgrade hassles if users install partial packages on their own.

'--with-texmf-dir=/DIR
--without-texmf-dir'
     This option is used for specifying a TDS-compliant directory
     hierarchy.  Using '--with-texmf-dir=/DIR' you can specify where the
     TeX TDS directory hierarchy resides, and the TeX files will get
     installed in '/DIR/tex/latex/preview/'.

     If you use the '--without-texmf-dir' option, the TeX-related files
     will be kept in the Emacs Lisp tree, and at runtime the 'TEXINPUTS'
     environment variable will be made to point there.  You can install
     those files into your own TeX tree at some later time with 'M-x
     preview-install-styles RET'.

'--with-tex-dir=/DIR'
     If you want to specify an exact directory for the preview TeX
     files, use '--with-tex-dir=/DIR'.  In this case, the files will be
     placed in '/DIR', and you'll also need the following option:

'--with-doc-dir=/DIR'
     This option may be used to specify where the TeX documentation
     goes.  It is to be used when you are using '--with-tex-dir=/DIR',
     but is normally not necessary otherwise.

3 Build/install and uninstall
*****************************

Once 'configure' has been run, simply enter

     make

at the prompt to byte-compile the lisp files, extract the TeX files and
build the documentation files.  To install the files into the locations
chosen earlier, type

     make install

You may need special privileges to install, e.g., if you are installing
into system directories.

   Should you want to completely remove the installed package, in the
same directory you built AUCTeX run

     make uninstall

You will need administration privileges if you installed the package
into system directories.

4 Loading the package
*********************

You can detect the successful activation of AUCTeX and preview-latex in
the menus after loading a LaTeX file like 'preview/circ.tex': AUCTeX
then gives you a 'Command' menu, and preview-latex gives you a 'Preview'
menu.

   For XEmacs, if the installation occured into a valid package
directory (which is the default), then this should work out of the box.

   With Emacs (or if you explicitly disabled use of the package system),
the startup files 'auctex.el' and 'preview-latex.el' may already be in a
directory of the 'site-start.d/' variety if your Emacs installation
provides it.  In that case they should be automatically loaded on
startup and nothing else needs to be done.  If not, they should at least
have been placed somewhere in your 'load-path'.  You can then load them
by placing the lines

     (load "auctex.el" nil t t)
     (load "preview-latex.el" nil t t)

   into your init file.

   If you explicitly used '--with-lispdir', you may need to add the
specified directory into Emacs' 'load-path' variable by adding something
like

     (add-to-list 'load-path "~/elisp")

   before the above lines into your Emacs startup file.

   For site-wide activation in GNU Emacs, see below.

   Once activated, the modes provided by AUCTeX are used per default for
all supported file types.  If you want to change the modes for which it
is operative instead of the default, use
     M-x customize-variable <RET> TeX-modes <RET>

   If you want to remove a preinstalled AUCTeX completely before any of
its modes have been used,
     (unload-feature 'tex-site)
   should accomplish that.

5 Providing AUCTeX as a package
*******************************

As a package provider, you should make sure that your users will be
served best according to their intentions, and keep in mind that a
system might be used by more than one user, with different preferences.

   There are people that prefer the built-in Emacs modes for editing TeX
files, in particular plain TeX users.  There are various ways to tell
AUCTeX even after auto-activation that it should not get used, and they
are described in the 'README' file.

   So if you have users that don't want to use the preinstalled AUCTeX,
they can easily get rid of it.  Activating AUCTeX by default is
therefore a good choice.

   If the installation procedure did not achieve this already by placing
'auctex.el' and 'preview-latex.el' into a possibly existing
'site-start.d' directory, you can do this by placing

     (load "auctex.el" nil t t)
     (load "preview-latex.el" nil t t)

in the system-wide 'site-start.el'.

   If your package is intended as an XEmacs package or to accompany a
precompiled version of Emacs, you might not know which TeX system will
be available when preview-latex gets used.  In this case you should
build using the '--without-texmf-dir' option described previously.  This
can also be convenient for systems that are intended to support more
than a single TeX distribution.  Since more often than not TeX packages
for operating system distributions are either much more outdated or much
less complete than separately provided systems like TeX Live, this
method may be generally preferable when providing packages.

   The following package structure would be adequate for a typical fully
supported Unix-like installation:

'preview-tetex'
     Style files and documentation for 'preview.sty', placed into a TeX
     tree where it is accessible from the teTeX executables usually
     delivered with a system.  If there are other commonly used TeX
     system packages, it might be appropriate to provide separate
     packages for those.
'auctex-emacs-tetex'
     This package will require the installation of 'preview-tetex' and
     will record in 'TeX-macro-global' where to find the TeX tree.  It
     is also a good idea to run
          emacs -batch -f TeX-auto-generate-global
     when either AUCTeX or teTeX get installed or upgraded.  If your
     users might want to work with a different TeX distribution
     (nowadays pretty common), instead consider the following:
'auctex-emacs'
     This package will be compiled with '--without-texmf-dir' and will
     consequently contain the 'preview' style files in its private
     directory.  It will probably not be possible to initialize
     'TeX-macro-global' to a sensible value, so running
     'TeX-auto-generate-global' does not appear useful.  This package
     would neither conflict with nor provide 'preview-tetex'.
'auctex-xemacs-tetex'
'auctex-xemacs'
     Those are the obvious XEmacs equivalents.  For XEmacs, there is the
     additional problem that the XEmacs sumo package tree already
     possibly provides its own version of AUCTeX, and the user might
     even have used the XEmacs package manager to updating this package,
     or even installing a private AUCTeX version.  So you should make
     sure that such a package will not conflict with existing XEmacs
     packages and will be at an appropriate place in the load order
     (after site-wide and user-specific locations, but before a
     distribution-specific sumo package tree).  Using the
     '--without-packagedir' option might be one idea to avoid conflicts.
     Another might be to refrain from providing an XEmacs package and
     just rely on the user or system administrator to instead use the
     XEmacs package system.

6 Installation for non-privileged users
***************************************

Often people without system administration privileges want to install
software for their private use.  In that case you need to pass more
options to the 'configure' script.  For XEmacs users, this is fairly
easy, because the XEmacs package system has been designed to make this
sort of thing practical: but GNU Emacs users (and XEmacs users for whom
the package system is for some reason misbehaving) may need to do a
little more work.

   The main expedient is using the '--prefix' option to the 'configure'
script, and let it point to the personal home directory.  In that way,
resulting binaries will be installed under the 'bin' subdirectory of
your home directory, manual pages under 'man' and so on.  It is
reasonably easy to maintain a bunch of personal software, since the
prefix argument is supported by most 'configure' scripts.

   You'll have to add something like
'/home/myself/share/emacs/site-lisp' to your 'load-path' variable, if it
isn't there already.

   XEmacs users can achieve the same end by pointing 'configure' at an
appropriate package directory (normally
'--with-packagedir=~/.xemacs/xemacs-packages' will serve).  The package
directory stands a good chance at being detected automatically as long
as it is in a subtree of the specified PREFIX.

   Now here is another thing to ponder: perhaps you want to make it easy
for other users to share parts of your personal Emacs configuration.  In
general, you can do this by writing '~myself/' anywhere where you
specify paths to something installed in your personal subdirectories,
not merely '~/', since the latter, when used by other users, will point
to non-existent files.

   For yourself, it will do to manipulate environment variables in your
'.profile' resp. '.login' files.  But if people will be copying just
Elisp files, their copies will not work.  While it would in general be
preferable if the added components where available from a shell level,
too (like when you call the standalone info reader, or try using
'preview.sty' for functionality besides of Emacs previews), it will be a
big help already if things work from inside of Emacs.

   Here is how to do the various parts:

Making the Elisp available
==========================

In GNU Emacs, it should be sufficient if people just do

     (load "~myself/share/emacs/site-lisp/auctex.el" nil t t)
     (load "~myself/share/emacs/site-lisp/preview-latex.el" nil t t)

   where the path points to your personal installation.  The rest of the
package should be found relative from there without further ado.

   In XEmacs, you should ask the other users to add symbolic links in
the subdirectories 'lisp', 'info' and 'etc' of their
'~/.xemacs/xemacs-packages/' directory.  (Alas, there is presently no
easy programmatic way to do this, except to have a script do the
symlinking for them.)

Making the Info files available
===============================

For making the info files accessible from within Elisp, something like
the following might be convenient to add into your or other people's
startup files:

     (eval-after-load 'info
        '(add-to-list 'Info-directory-list "~myself/info"))

   In XEmacs, as long as XEmacs can see the package, there should be no
need to do anything at all; the info files should be immediately
visible.  However, you might want to set 'INFOPATH' anyway, for the sake
of standalone readers outside of XEmacs.  (The info files in XEmacs are
normally in '~/.xemacs/xemacs-packages/info'.)

Making the LaTeX style available
================================

If you want others to be able to share your installation, you should
configure it using '--without-texmf-dir', in which case things should
work as well for them as for you.

7 Customizing
*************

Most of the site-specific customization should already have happened
during configuration of AUCTeX.  Any further customization can be done
with customization buffers directly in Emacs.  Just type 'M-x
customize-group RET AUCTeX RET' to open the customization group for
AUCTeX or use the menu entries provided in the mode menus.  Editing the
file 'tex-site.el' as suggested in former versions of AUCTeX should not
be done anymore because the installation routine will overwrite those
changes.

   You might check some variables with a special significance.  They are
accessible directly by typing 'M-x customize-variable RET <variable>
RET'.

 -- User Option: TeX-macro-global
     Directories containing the site's TeX style files.

   Normally, AUCTeX will only allow you to complete macros and
environments which are built-in, specified in AUCTeX style files or
defined by yourself.  If you issue the 'M-x TeX-auto-generate-global'
command after loading AUCTeX, you will be able to complete on all macros
available in the standard style files used by your document.  To do
this, you must set this variable to a list of directories where the
standard style files are located.  The directories will be searched
recursively, so there is no reason to list subdirectories explicitly.
Automatic configuration will already have set the variable for you if it
could use the program 'kpsewhich'.  In this case you normally don't have
to alter anything.

